I'm doing my first bid on a federally funded project, a big step in my 1.5 year old painting business..
Anyhow im trying to get an average time it takes to paint a square foot with 1 coat of primer or paint, so that i can figure in the total hours needed just for the wall work which is 9,200 square foot of wall space...
I am bidding off of plans making it a little hard because i dont want to under guestimate and put myself in the hole, or over estimate and not get the job:eek:

and this is cut and roll.... ceilings are tiled and i do not want to spend the extra time prepping all the unpainted surfaces for spraying 1 coat of primer, 2 coats of finnish

i know, what i want my profit to be, i know the cost of my materials, i know how much materials i will need, i know the prevailing wages needed to pay the help. they are fast and efficient workers,, im just trying to figure a formula for the average time it takes joe painter to paint 1 square foot of wall space with 1 coat of paint or primer, that post was pretty informative, though not what i particulally needed

TJ Paint

10-01-2009 02:18 PM

youre the only one that is gonna know your production rate. How would I know how fast your help is? How would I know what things are going to slow you down, hold you up, etc? Lol every job is different, every crew is different. I don't see how you expect someone besides you to answer this question.

nEighter

10-01-2009 02:22 PM

that and a foot painted on the ground is different from one painted 2 stories up on a ledge... :no:

TJ Paint

10-01-2009 02:32 PM

ok, you want an answer to plug in to your formula? Ok, it takes me about 5 seconds to roll a sq ft, but then sometimes longer on different surfaces. Other factors include (but are not limited to): relative humidity, whether or not we had enough coffee, what the ambient temp is, how high walls are (higher than 20ft my rate actually gets faster cuz that means I'm on a scissor lift and I just hold my roller on the wall and have a guy bring the lift down) , what type of product ( epoxy is icky to roll), if I ate my wheaties, if its monday, tues, friday. Wedsdays and thurs I always paint at 5 secs/sq ft.

nEighter

10-01-2009 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TJ Paint
(Post 93988)

ok, you want an answer to plug in to your formula? Ok, it takes me about 5 seconds to roll a sq ft, but then sometimes longer on different surfaces. Other factors include (but are not limited to): relative humidity, whether or not we had enough coffee, what the ambient temp is, how high walls are (higher than 20ft my rate actually gets faster cuz that means I'm on a scissor lift and I just hold my roller on the wall and have a guy bring the lift down) , what type of product ( epoxy is icky to roll), if I ate my wheaties, if its monday, tues, friday. Wedsdays and thurs I always paint at 5 secs/sq ft.

OH OH!! THAT is a big one!

nwpaintingmn

10-01-2009 03:40 PM

...

thx for the input, im going to figure that it takes an average person 3 hours to paint a 10 x 10 room 8 ft ceiling cut and roll , though if it took me that long i'd find another profession lol, so ill calculate the square footage of that room and divide it by the 3 hours giving me 1.7 minutes per square foot for a cut and roll... its an average of course
so 9200 square feet would give me 260 hours per coat average of course, 3 coats at 782 hours?? is that pretty flawed or not?

eh it may be pretty flawed, because i come up with over 4months for 1 person to paint that amount of square footage, though that could be pretty accurate considering it looks like a full time winter gig for 3 people staining about 30 interior doors, window trim, and door frames as wellas all the interior walls and a few ceilings

at a rough first look it looks to be somewhere in the neighborhood of over 40k just in labor

daArch

10-01-2009 03:49 PM

nwpaintingmn,

My estimates are "based" on times per square foot for most tasks. But these time/sf figures are only guidelines which are then adjusted for the variables of the room. A small powder room which has proportionally more trim to cut in than a long unobstructed hallway, is going to have a slower production rate than that long hallway.

And then you have set up time, clean up time, and many other factors that affect the production time. Primer is going to take longer than the second finish coat.

Now all that said, one of my BENCHMARKS of the past was 5 sq ft per minute which equates to .2 min per square foot.

Again, this was just a point of reference which would be adjusted dependent on many variables.

The other day, I applied wallpaper prep on the walls of a 10.6 x 15 x 7.5 room. Wallprep takes quicker than paint. Cut in was around two windows, two doors, stained base board, and pop corn ceiling. One coat took a total time of 60 minutes. That included quickly blading the walls, stirring the material, and cleaning tools and tray. That works out to 6.25 sq ft per minute, which falls within reason on my decades old formula. A 6 x 6 powder room often takes 45 minutes because of the higher percent of trim and obstructions and the inability to move easily.

Start keeping track of the time it takes you to complete tasks. Do it on every job for every task and pretty soon you will have enough figures to base estimates on.

Yah, either you had better find another profession, or I had better get back into painting.

nwpaintingmn

10-01-2009 04:11 PM

re

Yes, that is what i was getting at, i know my times may be more or less than what i figured, because of how much trim or any trim to mask etc.
i know that each office will have 1 door, 1 window some of them will have bifold closet doors, all of wich need to be stained and clear-coated, the baseboard may or may not be on yet when walls are to be painted, more than likely they will be of the rubber variety seen in most office areas.. a few ceilings will get painting , like stairway to lower level etc. this is a huge job compared to any other that ive come across, so was kind of daunted by the amount of square wall footage was in the building.. i like to specialize in residential painting, but in this economy you have to take what you can get to get by on these days..so Large commercial, here i come.. it may be what i need to really have the business take off, or it could put me under.. hopefully the former

nwpaintingmn

10-01-2009 04:16 PM

..

Quote:

Originally Posted by daArch
(Post 93993)

Is that with lunch and a siesta included? :whistling2:

Yah, either you had better find another profession, or I had better get back into painting.

lol like i said, if it took me that long i would find another line of work where i get paid by the hour :P

daArch

10-01-2009 05:00 PM

Quote:

of how much trim or any trim to mask

Mask? I thought you said brush and roll. Not blow and go.

(yah, age old discussion here on PT. Masking vs brush control)

nEighter

10-01-2009 05:12 PM

how is it you don't know?

WisePainter

10-02-2009 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nwpaintingmn
(Post 93982)

I'm doing my first bid on a federally funded project, a big step in my 1.5 year old painting business..

Tell you what, give me the phone # and address to the site and I will take a peek at it and get back to you with some #'s.

or not.

Love the title to yer thread there bub.

Dave Mac

10-02-2009 02:53 PM

125 sq per ft hour roll and brush one coat, less if its new sheetrock, faster if its the second coat, I expect any professionl painter in the country to handle that production rate, my production rate should be very similar to anyone who is a professional, and using the same technique, funny how people act about this stuff. A year in half in the buisness you should have these rates figures out already imo

jack pauhl

10-02-2009 10:19 PM

A fast time is 1.5 hours for 9200 sq ft of wall space rolling only. Thats about 100 sq per minute.

PressurePros

10-02-2009 11:13 PM

Be careful to not cut your margins to the bone to land a contract. There has to be some margin of error. We have all shown up at a project, coffee in hand, workers bright eyed and enthusiastic and a simple unforeseen circumstance changes the entire day. Given the choice of losing a contract or dropping my pants with over confident production rates, i choose the former. Good luck on this bid, hope you land it.

nEighter

10-03-2009 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jack pauhl
(Post 94155)

A fast time is 1.5 hours for 9200 sq ft of wall space rolling only. Thats about 100 sq per minute.

okay I have done the math. That is an 8' tall wall 1150' long. that is .217 miles long or almost a quarter mile long in 1.5 hour. I think your number is off there Jack.

RCP

10-03-2009 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nEighter
(Post 94178)

okay I have done the math. That is an 8' tall wall 1150' long. that is .217 miles long or almost a quarter mile long in 1.5 hour. I think your number is off there Jack.